RESEARCH

ISB Teams Up with Citi Group and IBM

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Citi Collaboration

Citi Foundation has dedicated $ 1.5 million research grant to Centre for Analytical Finance (CAF), at the Indian School of Business (ISB). The grant will be dispersed over a period of three years. The purpose of the grant is for CAF to take up different projects in the financial domain. The Citi and ISB will design a programme that intends to study, expand and advocate new methods and processes to improve the access of capital markets to small investors, enterprises, and to the sections that are unable to access financial systems.

CAF is a research centre that focuses on research in financial and capital markets in India. There is huge need in the Indian market to understand and envisage the capital markets and the factors that make them work. There is also a vast requirement for improving the access to capital markets by small and medium sized enterprises and investors. Expanding on this need, Sanjay Nayar, CEO, Citi India, said, “CAF is uniquely positioned to undertake this project and target to fill the gap in the access to capital markets.”

The association of Citi and ISB on this programme will promote purposeful research that will enhance the financial growth in the rural sectors and bring about an all inclusive financial development in the country. Speaking on the effect this study will have, Dean M Rammohan Rao said, “Although India is poised for major economic growth, rural areas are still lagging behind in the economic growth. This situation needs to be remedied. Our association with Citi will augment the study of the financial growth in an all inclusive manner in the country.”

CAF will use this grant to further the study on capital markets through this programme. It proposes to organise seminars, conferences, workshops, and other such connected projects to disseminate the findings of the study. CAF will be in a position to create proposals for financial managers, advisors, academics, and others who make difference in the formulation of financial development in the country. Professor Sankar De, Executive Director, CAF, at the ISB, will lead the research. He said, “Our focus at the CAF is to research capital markets in emerging economies, especially India. We expect our project findings to provide help and support in creating a sound financial infrastructure for those markets, and facilitate reforms to increase their global competitiveness.”

IBM Collaboration

The Indian School of Business (ISB) and IBM India recently partnered for an Open Collaborative Research (OCR) which targets at research on improving the efficiency of the services sector. This research, the first of its kind in Asia, will aid companies to streamline their overall organisation structure, cut down attrition, and also help the high performance groups to progress.

In this OCR programme, research can be conducted without any apprehension over issues regarding academic property. This programme will serve as a good instance of the advantages of collaborative innovation between industry and academia. The research’s results can be accessed by universities, companies, industries, and others openly.

Research on the service sector is welcome in the present Indian economic scenario where this sector contributes to a major portion of the Indian GDP. Stressing on the need for research on the service sector Dean M Rammohan Rao said, “Through our association with IBM in this collaborative research on service sector, I hope we will make a significant contribution to inclusive economic growth in India.”

Speaking on innovation being the foundation for open and collaborative research, Dr Guruduth Banavar, Director, IBM India Research Laboratory said, “Innovation is essential to address the world’s challenges and opportunities and the responsibility must be shared among industry, government and academia. The coming together of IBM India and ISB is an important step in this direction.”

The research will be led by teams from the Centre for Global Logistics and Manufacturing Strategies (GLAMS), ISB and the India Research Laboratory, IBM. The research focuses on the service sector in India first, and will extend later to companies in Asia.

The focus of this research is on business - to - business services. The benefits of this research are widespread. Speaking on the diverse use of the research, Professor N Viswanadham, Executive Director – GLAMS, ISB, said, “The applications of this research will be extensive. The benefits of the research can be experienced by medium or large IT companies to multi-billion business - to - business global traders.”

Earlier, ISB and IBM had signed an MoU on February 7, 2007, to develop a first-of-its-kind, joint research on Service Science, Management and Engineering (SSME) in India.

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